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Closure of Holywell Medical Group

From Friday 15 May, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (CRHFT), in the form of Royal Primary Care, will be responsible for providing GP services to all patients registered with the Holywell Medical Group in Chesterfield and Staveley.

Exceptional circumstances mean that Holywell Medical Group will no longer be able to provide GP services after Thursday 14 May. This is an unexpected development and to ensure a safe and sustainable service continues for local patients, Royal Primary Care has been commissioned to provide an emergency caretaker service until 31 March 2016. Dr Paul Cook, former Medical Director at Derbyshire County Primary Care Trust and GP at Welbeck Road Health Centre, will act in an advisory capacity to support the caretaker arrangement. Employees of Holywell Medical Group were told of the exceptional circumstances in a staff meeting held yesterday and patients have been notified in a letter from NHS North Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group, NHS England and Royal Primary Care that was posted first-class yesterday.

NHS North Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group will commission services from three of the five sites. This is to preserve services and to help secure a more sustainable service model in the face of national shortages of medical and other primary care professionals. The sites that will continue to offer full services for all Holywell Medical Group patients are:

The Grange Family Health Centre, Stubbing Road, Grangewood

Rectory Surgery, Rectory Road, Staveley

Inkersall Family Medical Centre, Attlee Road, Inkersall.

Holywell House and Barrow Hill surgeries will close on Thursday 14May. Patients will however be able to continue to access services at any of the other three surgeries. To help ensure continuity of care and services existing staff will have the opportunity to transfer to CRHFT and the majority of staff are expected to do this.

Dr Ben Milton, Chair of NHS North Derbyshire CCG and GP at Darley Dale Medical Centre, said: “The news that Holywell Medical Group would no longer be able to provide GP services was unexpected and we appreciate this may cause concern to patients. However, we wish to assure every patient that our priority is to make sure a safe and sustainable service continues and that any potential disruption to clinical services is kept to a minimum.

“We believe that Royal Primary Care will be an excellent caretaker provider and see this as a good opportunity to forge stronger links between GP surgeries (primary care) and local hospitals (secondary care) and support the principle aim of our local 21st Century Joined Up Care programme which aims to bring services closer together”.

Gavin Boyle, Chief Executive at Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are delighted to step in to sustain these services for local people and we’re looking forward to bringing GP, primary care and hospital services together in ways that will benefit all our patients. We’re already looking at ways we can strengthen what’s available at the three surgeries and we hope that patients will share their experiences, and work with us, to bring about change and improvement”.

Holywell Medical Group Senior Partner Dr Nadine Kale said: “The partners have been exploring ways of integrating care with other local healthcare providers for some time. However, ongoing difficulties to recruit health professionals, particularly GPs, and the financial pressures of having to use more locum doctors has driven this urgent change.

“This is the first integration of Primary and Secondary care in the North Derbyshire area and it is an exciting new challenge. The support provided by the Chesterfield Royal Hospital will free up more GP time to see patients which was previously spent on managing the practice”.